New affinity

"Woah! This amount of essence is insane, ha-ha!" Thiago exclaimed in ecstasy as he felt the absurd amount of energy being fed back to him through the black hole that had slowly sucked in the Golden Basilisk's massive body just moments before.

Normally, Thiago would not start his devouring with the strongest beast, which in this case would be the Golden Basilisk with the highest realm of all of them at the 2nd level of the Superior Student realm. The energy he would derive from devouring the basilisk would normally be enough to allow him to advance directly to the 2nd tier of the Superior Student realm, or at least to the 1st tier.

If that were to happen, the other two beasts would not be of much use to him, except to give him system points. However, it did not matter now, as he was doing the devouring for the mission requirement, and he would not break through to the next realm no matter which beast he devoured first, as all the energy would be conserved by the system in his body.

Coming back to Thiago, he was feeling quite comfortable at the time thanks to the energy that was pouring into his body, but he also noticed that the energy was not initiating his breakthrough as usual, but that was within his expectations, so he did not worry about it at all.

After what seemed like a long time to Thiago, but was in fact only a few seconds, the Golden Basilisk had been completely refined into essence, reduced to nothingness inside the black hole, utterly ceasing to exist.

Just then he saw a notification pop up on his system panel, which made him quite happy after reading its content.

[Congratulations! Poison affinity has reached the small achievement stage.]

"Haha, it seems that the Golden Basilisk's poison affinity was stronger than mine, and now that I've devoured its body, my poison affinity has improved, that's very pleasing," said Thiago in a good mood, now that his affinity had improved, which was quite an achievement as most creatures were born with their affinity and had no way of improving it except with the help of some precious heavenly and earthly treasures and materials.

Although he had improved his Poison affinity, he was a little disappointed not to get the Basilisk's Gold affinity, but that was just grumbling at a high level.

Not seeing any other notifications pop up at that moment, Thiago made his way towards his next target, the Lightning bear.

It was the same procedure as always, with Thiago positioning his tail with the black hole on it next to the bear, who was then rapidly sucked into the black, abyssal vortex of no return.

Just like a minute or so before, Thiago felt an incredible amount of Essence pour into his body, albeit a little less than before, giving him that comfortable, relaxed feeling once again.

"Man, I could really stay like this the whole day, it is simply too relaxing and too different to the normal times when I devour some beast," mumbled Thiago.

As soon as he had said this, the feeling was gone, and he quickly regained his focus.

"Oh! A notification, Hehe," Thiago grinned as he saw a pop-up message on his system panel right after the devouring had finished, indicating that he would probably get some kind of benefit, just like before when he had devoured the Golden Basilisk and his poison affinity had improved afterwards.

[You received Affinity: Lightning (small achievement stage)]

"Haha, yes! That's what we be talking about, Haha! Very good," Thiago rejoiced after seeing the information that he had received the lightning affinity, which made him extremely happy.

"Oh, and I got it right at the small achievement level, how convenient Haha!"

Thiago had seen how powerful the Lightning Affinity could be when he had watched the Lightning Bear fight, which made him even happier that he would now be someone with the Lightning Affinity as well. But he also had other thoughts about having received the lightning affinity; before he only had the poison and his darkness affinity, which would not be well received in the human city if he were to use them, as people who used them were known to be evil and sinister.

Well, more the poison affinity, because the dark affinity was incredibly rare and would normally only appear in demons and dark apparitions, because humans and beasts were not able to wield the dark affinity, or they would be infected by the darkness and become a dark creature with no mind and rationality, only murderous and chaotic thoughts. Thiago was therefore an outlier as he was able to perfectly wield the dark affinity with no problem whatsoever.

Anyway, enough of that, let us return to Thiago as he strolls towards the last beast, on his way to complete the mission that began some six chapters ago...

"Now you are the last one," Thiago muttered as he stood in front of the Ice Serpent and thought back to how he had started his mission with the Ice Serpent, as it had been the first beast he had found and then lured it into the Bear's territory, where everything had unfolded.

And as if he had planned it perfectly from the beginning, his mission would also end with the Ice Serpent again, forming a complete cycle.

"It really is magical, isn't it? It all started with you, and it will end with you today," Thiago said to the already dead ice serpent, who was no longer able to answer, but that did not matter to Thiago, since he had only said that to express his own thoughts.

However, Thiago had already activated his Black Hole skill, which would probably be the last time for that day, and continuously the gigantic body of the Ice Serpent slowly began to move towards the inside of the Black Vortex, drawn in by the pull of the Black Hole.

Thiago could not hide the grin that slowly crept across his face, which, to be honest, looked rather frightening and strange as he had the face of a tiger and not a human. Nevertheless, it showed how much Thiago was already looking forward to what would happen after he had completely devoured the ice serpent.

"Just a little bit more," Thiago muttered, watching the process closely and realising that more than half of the ice serpent's long body had already been absorbed into the black hole, never to be seen again.

And then, a few seconds later, it happened - the snake was completely consumed by the black hole and the last bit of essence seeped into Thiago's body.

At that moment, Thiago was in no mood to worry about the sensation of the essence pouring into his body but was eagerly awaiting a message from the system.

"Why is there no reaction from the system?" asked Thiago, having received no notification or signal at all after successfully devouring the body of the Ice Serpent and thus all three required beasts. As he began to grow impatient, he was quickly snapped back to his senses when he heard a loud system message in his mind and on his panel, which instantly made his worries disappear and replaced them with utter joy.

[Congratulations for the completion of the Evolution mission!]

[Current Mission: Evolution's Trial

You have reached a pivotal moment in your journey as a cultivator. In order to initiate your evolution and reach the next major realm, you must undertake a dangerous and challenging personal quest.

Your objective is to slay and thereafter devour the most powerful beasts and its underlings that reside within the depths of the forest you are currently located in. These beasts are known to be incredibly dangerous and should not be underestimated.

Status: Completed

___

Reward for completion: Evolution

Additional reward due to the fast completion: One Random skill/Technique]

"Haha! I finally managed to complete this mission, and I even get an extra reward for the short time it took to do it, haha," Thiago laughed with joy and happiness after scanning the message seemingly at the speed of light.

It turned out that his plan to have the Lightning Bear, the Ice Serpent and the Golden Basilisk fight each other, and even partially mortally wound each other, had indeed been the perfect way to complete this mission in the quickest possible time, as he had even received an extra reward, which was quite exhilarating, at least in Thiago's opinion.

Just then he saw another notification pop up after he had read through the first one:

[Do you wish to initiate your evolution now?]

'Hmm, how long will the evolution take?' asked Thiago in his mind and surprisingly also got an answer from the system.

[The evolution will need around fifteen minutes.]

The system's answers were, as usual, short and to the point, but Thiago was quite happy that it had replied at all. He also assumed now that the system would only answer him if it was something really important, like now, and not about some basic things.

Returning from his wandering thoughts, Thiago thought about it and decided to do the evolution in his inner world, just to be safe and not to risk being ambushed or interrupted in the middle of the evolution, which would be quite disturbing and could potentially harm him by making his evolution fail or something like that. You can never be too careful and cautious - he had learned that from a certain protagonist called Han Jue from a novel back on Earth.

So, he answered the system's question as to whether he wanted to initiate evolution immediately with a no, and instead entered his inner world first, which only needed him to make a single thought.

When he got there, he didn't go into the mansion as he usually did, for fear of destroying it during his evolution, but went into the huge empty space next to the mansion, where it wouldn't matter if anything happened during his evolution.

"Alright system, start the evolution now," Thiago declared, already imagining and thinking wildly about what would happen during his evolution. Of course, also what he would look like after his evolution and what his battle prowess would be thereafter - the two most important things to him.

[As you wish.]

[Evolution Begins...]

...